The Hard Reality of True Christian Compassion

Introduction

From the Mecca
SHORT
Show 50s
The Hard Reality of True Christian Compassion
Taped Sept 12th 2021
Aired Monday Sept 27th 2021

Ever struggle with how to help people who ask for it – in particular financially? This issue really plagues those wanting to walk as Jesus walked. I have long wondered about the balance, as a Christian, between giving aide to people in need against the chance of aiding them in their weaknesses. There is such a call going out in the world today – especially here in the United States – that is centered on aiding the struggling with food and shelter – and in many ways Christians are becoming more focused on this than anything else.

Personal Experiences and Challenges

In the first two or three years of doing ministry in Salt Lake City, I slept on a couch in the television station and therefore spent a lot of time rubbing shoulders with the street public because that is where I would write. Many of them would recognize me and they often they asked for help of some kind – which I was always more than eager and willing to give. To be frank, I was new to Christian ministry, was just coming out of Training and felt like I was being watched in how I executed my faith. So, I gave and helped partly from my heart, partly from guilt and fear, partly to be seen.

As the ministry grew (and therefore our popularity), we were constantly being confronted with helping people in need. 98% of the requests were from people who had what you might call immediate needs due to an immediate circumstance – with the other two percent having needs that were the result of a long term issue – medical bills, sudden unemployment, divorce or unexpected homelessness. I always felt like the latter cases were always deserving of assistance but we were usually only in a financial position to aid those with immediate circumstantial needs – or what they said were urgent needs – because those things could be handled with 20 to 100.00 instead of a thousand.

The Reality of Helping

Lessons Learned

For years I trusted the requests that came in. After two or three years of sleeping in the station, I moved into an apartment with my daughter Cassidy (which was downtown), and for the past six years I have lived in our own place across the street from the central homeless shelters in the city. Obviously, I have had my share of requests for help. I also volunteered to help guide men exiting from the prison system and that gave me some first hand knowledge of people in immediate need.

After sixteen years, this is what I have learned about giving to people on the street, helping people in need, and even giving long term assistance to those unable to make ends meet. Almost all of them lie. It’s the ones that don’t that make not helping a standard rule difficult.

Examples of Deception

Some examples. I had a woman who was missing a foot in a wheelchair approach me years ago. She was obese. I had compassion on her and took her shopping. We bought everything for her immediate needs – tampons, filled her prescriptions, got her food. And then gave her some cash. She told me she was going to go to church the following Sunday. I went to pick her up at her motel. She was high on crack and laughed hysterically when I asked her if she still wanted to attend.

We put a couple on the street with a baby who begged us for a hotel room for the night. We got it for them. Something told me to check on them later in the evening. They had got a cash refund on the room, checked out, and were across the street in the Denny’s parking lot – high.

I’ve got at least a dozen stories from the takers – not one of them successful. Not one worked to help turn their lives around. And this is about helping the people who say that they need immediate money for food, gas, a room or bus fare. Every one of them – liars.

Then, pastoring an online church there are those who either attend who are in constant need of support financially and/or there are those souls whom I call floaters. They look churches up online, then float around to all of them gathering up what material support that they can get from the pastor or congregants – before disappearing in the horizon. But

Understanding Christian Compassion

Then there are the long-term cases that pop up. They are the most difficult in ways because some of them do successfully overcome their circumstances. They just get out of prison, or a bad marriage, or addiction and are willing to work, and to try, and to suffer. These are the sorts you want everyone to be – but they are few and far between. That’s what makes the long-term support cases tough – because you really can’t tell out of the gates who will wind up respecting your assistance, and who literally see you as a source of transportation, a source for food, clothing, and spending cash.

After being burned too many times to count (I know, I am pretty thick sometimes), I started looking HARD at our role model, Jesus.

Biblical Examples of Compassion

What examples or parables do we get of someone helping others in Jesus' day? Prodigal Son? The Good Samaritan? The man lowered through the roof? Peter and John healing a man in Acts 3?

In the story of the Prodigal Son, the Father waited for the Son to come to his senses and return before embracing Him again. In the Good Samaritan, the Samaritan helped a man who was overcome by thieves and beaten – anyone with half a heart would help that guy. But we note that Jesus didn’t have the Samaritan helping a drunk, or jobless bum, or a criminal. The man who was disabled and was helped by friends who lowered him through the roof was all so that He could get access to the Lord!

And when Peter and John were approached by an actual beggar for money, Peter said to him; Acts 3:6 Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Isn’t this the point – to help people, give them the assistance they need to rise up and walk, first SPIRITUALLY, and then Physically?

The Nature of Aid

When the woman with the alabaster box used it on Jesus and was criticized, Jesus said: “The poor you will always have with you.” Is that not true? Did Jesus leave a world that was still filled with poor, and poverty, and disease, and starvation, and addiction, and the like? He did.

We cannot save the material world. In my experience, the trend to “aid” everyone in need is not aid at all – it's enabling. It’s handing them crutches. It's supplying them with their next fix. There are always those who we can aid who will appreciate it. But I have learned the hard lesson that aid for aid's sake usually hurts the person more than it will ever help them.

I would think that the best response any Christian could give when asked for material aid is the response of Peter and John: Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.

I’ve tested this out, guys. There are always exceptions. But the general rule is to aid in ways that will not facilitate laziness, ease, addiction, or manipulation. We are living in an age where it is more noble to be a failure than a success. An age of expected enabling and condemnation when enabling is withheld.

Aid with prayer, with rides (if it's safe), with encouragement, with smiles and a listening ear. But be wise when confronted by a manipulative survivor specialist – they will drain you dry and laugh when they are through with you and all of your kindnesses will amount to nothing.

I think Christians ought to lead the way in delivering to the solicitous world a clear message: Gold and silver I have none, but what I have I give you – rise up on your own damn feet and walk. If you don’t have feet I will help you, but if you do, rise up and walk. That is Christian compassion.